To Create, You Must Imitate

I know, that’s a bold statement. Let me explain.
 
I recently read an article by Josh Linkner, encouraging people to stop imitating and start creating. After all, people pay hundreds of millions of dollars for original paintings by Picasso, van Gogh, Jackson Pollock and Renoir…so why imitate someone else when you can create your own? As Linkner writes:

Knowing that the world craves and pays handsomely for original thought and fresh ideas, why do so many of us spend our days mimicking the work of others? Rather than breaking ground with a bold new product, me-too offerings fill the marketplace. Instead of creating a unique new ad campaign, tired slogans blend together in a sea of sameness.

It’s a good article, and I can’t dispute what Linkner says in the above paragraph. There are certainly plenty of offerings out there that are variations of the same theme.
 
Here’s the thing, though. If Linkner could have gone to Picasso and said “Hey, forget about imitating…just go create something,” I’d bet dollars to donuts that Picasso probably would have told him to piss off.
 
What Linkner’s article misses is that all of those artists studied the Old Masters to build their own technique foundations, then they riffed from there. [highlights color=”ffea00″]Imitation allows us to understand and explore how things are created, and it gives us the freedom and confidence to create our own things.[/highlights]
 
So forget the whole “creators-are-awesome-imitators-suck” theory. Imitators can be creators in the making. After all, there’s a purpose to imitation as part of the creator progression. The trick is not to stay there, but to learn, let go, and do your own.
 

The Creator Progression 

1. Imitate

First we imitate, because imitation is how we learn a basic skill. It’s how we understand how something is done. When learning to paint, we often imitate the masters to understand their techniques and how they approach their own creation. Imitation answers our question, “how in the world did they DO that?” Even kids imitate their parents–for better or worse–because they view something in their parents as being worthy of having or being like.
 
But the progression doesn’t stop there.
 

2. Integrate

Imitation leads to stealing, or integration. And no, I’m not talking about ripping off someone else’s work and calling it your own. When we imitate, we parrot, but we don’t “own.” We try on a technique or approach, but it’s not really “ours.” From the creator progression perspective, when we “steal” we take the techniques and approaches that we like and we make them our own. Confucius knows what I’m talking about:
 
[blockquote source=”Confucius”]If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.[/blockquote]
 
The idea is that we can imitate something—learn how do to something and understand how it works—to the point where we can then make that aspect our own. We’ve “stolen” it into ourselves for our own use. It’s no longer us imitating the style of a master in our painting, it’s us discovering the pieces through others that help us name and integrate ourselves and our own style.
 

3. Create

Once we start to understand what we like and don’t like by “copying” and “stealing” from others, that’s when the fun stuff can happen. We’ve built a base of skills through our imitation. We’ve discovered our preferences and a voice we may resonate with through our integration. Now we can turn those skills to our own purposes and create something from ourselves…without worrying about referencing back to the contributions of others.
 
Take Picasso for example. (He was one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, and is one of my fairy godfathers to boot!)
 

How Pablo Became Picasso

 
(Disclaimer: I am not an art historian, nor do I play one on TV.)
 

First he copied:

When Picasso first started to paint, he displayed an exceptional talent for realistic renderings. In other words, he imitated what he saw in the world onto the canvas. Here’s a painting of a man, done when Picasso was about 14 years old (!!!). This and other paintings were included in an exhibition of his early works at the National Gallery of Art:
 

 
The realism of this painting is impressive, regardless of the artist’s age. But the Age in which the artist lived also was being imitated. “High art” in 1895 was considered to be a realistic or classicist representation of the subject. So while Picasso imitated the literal form of his subject in his painting, he also imitated the style that was so prevalent at the time.
 

Then Picasso began to steal.

In 1899, Picasso joined a group of avant-guard painters and writers who bucked convention and embraced symbolism in their art: Picasso discovered the founders of Modernism, and then he started painting like this:
 

Finally, be began to Create with a capital “C”.

As he began to incorporate his own emotions and experiences into his work, Picasso began to paint in his own style and convention, instead of producing in some other style or movement. He began to paint like this:
 

 
And this:
 

 
And even this:
 

 
His style continued to grow and evolve until his death in 1973.
 

One Size Fits Most

 
Now, I’m not saying that this creative process is true for absolutely everyone. I’m sure there are people in the world who create new and amazing things with no prior experience in the subject.
 
What I AM saying is that if this Creator Progression is true for one of us, then odds are good that it’s true for quite a few more.
 
The imitation and stealing that Picasso did in his early years allowed him to be all Pablo like Picasso in his own creative work moving forward…just as your own learning practice allows you to find your own voice as a creator and produce your own style!
 
So if someone comes up to you and says, “hey, forget about imitating…just go out and create something,” feel free to tell them to piss off that you’re just following in Picasso’s footsteps on your own journey to finding your own creator voice! ;^)
 
I cannot wait to see what you draw forth,